Kingdom: The Complete Series

by Steven William Hannah

  Two men have forced Trespasser Two – the large American – to the ground, and are holding his arms apart as though they intended to crucify him, whilst two prisoners repeatedly jam blades through the underside of his mask until he stops struggling.

  Trespasser Three goes down under a hail of blows – one prisoner gets a lucky hit with a spanner on the back of her helmet, and the shock turns her legs to jelly. Even as she goes down she gets her knife into someone's thigh, bringing another down with her.

  A flurry of rapid strikes from men with lead pipes ends any resistance she had put up, smashing her visor open. The Trespasser sees her sharp blue eyes, devoid of life, through a forest of orange legs.

  Orange clad arms wrap around his waist and stop him twisting away– hordes of hands pin his arms back and stop him punching and kicking. A prisoner gets close and Trespasser One headbutts him so hard he sees the man's eyes go blank as he falls back.

  Trespasser One realises that he is screaming.

  They grab his legs despite his kicking, holding him still as they tackle him to the floor.

  One of them grabs his head, pulling it back to reveal his bare neck. He keeps struggling, fighting to get a hand free.

  A prisoner produces a knife and leans down.

  Time stops.

  The Trespasser can still hear his heart pounding in his ears, the executioner's knife inches from his neck. Still hyperventilating, it takes him a moment to register what has happened.

  Jamie is crouched above him, one hand on his shoulder. Jamie's mask is shattered: his eye is swollen shut, and there's a bloody gash cut across his forehead leaking blood into his eye. He is clutching at his ribs and grimacing in pain, blood leaking from between his fingers. Another, smaller trickle of blood is coming from the bottom of his broken mask.

  Trespasser One manages to find his voice.

  “Jamie?”

  “We've got to get out of here,” says Jamie. “I can't hold us for long. Get up, come on. Where are the other -”

  “Dead, just go.”

  “Shit,” whispers Jamie. He offers the Trespasser a hand, and looks around. “Let's just get out of here, man.”

  Jamie, holding a blood-spattered lead pipe, gets him to his feet. The Trespasser keeps a firm hold on him, shaking with adrenaline as they start to push through the silent crowd.

  “What have they done with Mark?” asks Jamie, talking through gritted teeth and leaning on the Trespasser.

  “I think...” he sighs. “Ah shit. The Gardens. I think they buried him under the Gardens.”

  “We need to go back and get him.”

  The Trespasser says nothing.

  “Oh no,” whispers Jamie, stumbling.

  “What?”

  They finally get out of the crowd and Jamie tightens his grip on the Trespasser and falls to his knees, clutching his temples through his mask.

  “Run,” he gasps, before he finally lets go.

  Time comes crashing back to them.

  The Trespasser picks him up again as the crowd stop in confusion.

  “They're over here,” shouts a prisoner.

  The crowd turn around to see the Trespasser and Jamie hobbling towards the closed bars.

  They begin pacing towards them.

  “Jamie, can you -”

  He shakes his head, blood from his nose dripping from under his mask. “I'm trying, man.”

  The Trespasser reaches the cage door and fumbles at his belt for an explosive to blow the railings open. Jamie huddles like a cornered animal as the prisoners close in around them, savouring the moment.

  A handful of them step forward, and one prisoner orders the others:

  “Finish it.”

  The crowd step forward, bringing their weapons high. Even the Trespasser closes his eyes and bows his head. With the last of his strength, he tries to shelter Jamie from the coming assault.

  But the blows never land.

  Trespasser One opens a wary eye and sees a blue bubble protecting them from the horde. The mass of prisoners are trying to push against it, smashing their weapons against it.

  He looks at the other side of the bars and sees four black-clad figures, one of whom is holding his head and stretching his hand out.

  “Gary?”

  The lock clicks open and the railings slide back without anybody touching them. Trespasser One picks Jamie up and throws them both through the gap. He feels arms closing around him, pulling him away from the horde.

  With a clang, the railing's close over, and Stacy takes a deep breath. As one unit, they help each other scramble away from the bars.

  “That was tough,” she wheezes.

  Gary is rubbing his temples as the forcefield disintegrates, letting the prisoners reach their tattooed arms through the bars like the undead.

  “Hey, Gary,” says Stacy, patting his arm. “Well done.”

  “Where's the other two?” asks Donald. “The other Trespassers?”

  Trespasser One just shakes his head, getting to his feet. He and Jamie put their arms around one another's shoulders, and begin limping for the exit.

  “It was a trap,” he says, his voice low and tired, beaten. “Mark's gone. The others didn't make it.”

  Stacy stops walking. “What?”

  “I said he's gone, Stacy,” the Trespasser snaps. “We need to get out of here.”

  She says nothing, and though the mask hides her face, he sees her shoulders drop and the fight go out of her.

  “Donald,” the Trespasser waves at him. “Jamie's hurt, can you help him?”

  Donald snaps upright, and plants a hand on him as they walk. Jamie feels himself heating up, and the pain becomes a tingling memory as his skin knits itself back together and his blood congeals between his fingers. Jamie, his head hanging low, mumbles to himself:

  “This isn't over.”

  “I know, Jamie,” the Trespasser says as they make it through the last prison wing towards the exit. “We'll find the King and his men, and we'll bring them all to justice.”

  “Justice? I'll have justice when I choke the last breath from that bastard's body myself.”

  “We'll be right behind you,” says Stacy as they emerge into the courtyard, the evening settling in to stay. The helicopter's engines are spinning to life as they approach.

  “I should have killed him when I had the chance,” says Jamie.

  The Trespasser shakes his head. “Mark wouldn't want you saying that.”

  Jamie says nothing.

  The Trespasser puts a finger to his ear.

  “Trespasser One to Command. Mission aborted. It was an ambush: Trespasser's Two and Three are KIA.” He rips the mask off his face as he walks up the ramp, Jamie still hanging onto him. “Mark is missing in action, presumed dead. He wasn't here. Have our boys search the rubble at the Gardens for his body. Don't tell his mother yet – I'll do it myself..”

  “No.” Jamie puts a wavering hand on his wrist, and rips his own mask off. The Trespasser stops, seeing the angry tears coating his red cheeks. His eye has turned yellow and black, and the blood coating his face has dried. He looks like something from hell. “I'll do it. I'll do it when I can tell her that the man who killed her son has paid the price for it.”

  The Trespasser nods. He continues to talk into his headset as the squad file into the helicopter, and the ramp closes over.

  “We need an entire unit here, Command. The prisoner's are armed, they own the place.” He listens to the reply and then nods, turning to the squad: “They're sending in the cavalry. They're going to storm this place.”

  “I hope they fucking wipe it out,” says Jamie as he straps in. He glowers in silence. Stacy straps in beside him as the helicopter takes off.

  “We'll find the bastard,” she says.

  “I know.”

  She squeezes Jamie's arm as a single tear escapes his swollen eye and runs down his cheek. He wipes it away as though it were a fly, and twists his trembling lip into an angered grimace rather than let it
out.

  “Do you want me to fix that, too?” asks Donald, motioning to Jamie's face as he takes his mask off for some fresh air.

  Jamie shakes his head, and Donald accepts it without protest.

  “So what do we do now?” asks Cathy.

  “Agency men will search the rubble at the Gardens for Mark,” says the Trespasser. “Asides that: the arrival is in three hours. We still have a job to do.”

  “The King is still out there,” says Jamie, “and we have three hours to hunt him down -”

  “Jamie,” the Trespasser stops him, and the tension in the helicopter spikes like a temperature. “The King blew his chance to get a powered person on his side with Mark the first time. Chances are he'll try to get to the second batch of people before we do. If you want to hurt him – if you want your chance to get to him – then the arrival is where you need to focus your anger. He wants us distracted for this, so concentrate. Ok?”

  Jamie says nothing, but gives him a nod that is only barely visible.

  Beneath the Gardens, something shifts. Of all the fires that are burning beneath the ground at that moment, Mark's burns the brightest.

  Something within him is fighting.

  It burns away the chemicals clinging to his cells and coating his lungs. It renews the nerve endings paralysed by the toxins and breathes life into him once more, keeping his blood flowing and his brain alive.

  But it is running out of fuel.

  Mark, his eyes and nose gushing blood, wraps his fingers around the flask on his belt and tries to slide it up towards him. His elbow catches on some rubble in the molten darkness. Trying not to scream as the heat begins to burn and singe his skin, he forces his elbow to twist farther and father -

  He feels a pop and can't contain his screaming this time. His elbow and his wrist dislocate, and he loses his grip – but now, with beads of sweat coursing down his cheeks, he uses what little strength remains to push it up his chest, where his other hand is trapped.

  Whimpering with the pain and the effort, and sobbing out of fear, he makes one last effort and lifts his hand. Where it was pinned against his chest, he now has an inch of movement or so, and uses it to loop his fingers around the flask's top. He swings it like a pendulum, down over his chest and into the gap between his neck and his shoulder.

  The temperature is getting too much. His legs are on fire, he can feel the skin melting away from them.

  He can't see. His lungs are ablaze with the heat of the air that he is breathing. Everything is beginning to fail.

  He has seconds.

  He twists his neck as far as he can, reaching for the top of the flask like a child to a bottle. Twinging, the muscles in his neck lock, and he pushes further, afraid at any moment that his neck will break and the cool, calming peace of death will finally find him.

  Instead he finds the top of the flask, and his teeth grip around it. He works his aching jaw muscles to pop the top off the flask, and spits it to the side.

  Whisky splashes over his face.

  Grinning and laughing, he feels the torrent of reeking alcohol flood against his chin. He opens his mouth, scooping up what he can and gulping it down. Stretching and aching, he jams his teeth around the opening and tilts his head back.

  Down there in the darkness, with his life seeping from his nose and his body beginning to disintegrate, a fire explodes within him. It roars as he fuels it, downing the contents of his flask like a victorious runner. The fire seeps into his muscles and strengthens them, repairing the damage done by the poison.

  The heat fades – he is still aware of it, but the pain is no longer searing through his mind. He tries to move and finds that he can. It's tough; the weight of a building is pushing down on his arms, but now he pushes back.

  The rubble begins to shift and he pushes harder, struggling to his knees as he takes the weight of his old project on his shoulders. He stands up, roaring in triumph.

  With a cry that is heard on the surface and snaps heads around in surprise, Mark bends his legs, focuses his strength into them, and leaps upward.

  He crashes through the rubble and streaks into the cool evening air like a firework.

  Mark flies, bathing in the frozen atmosphere, and for just a few seconds of elation he is hovering.

  Flying.

  Mark tastes the sweetest air he has ever breathed, and looks around at the city from on high.

  Then the magic goes, and he falls back to earth like an angel, arms outstretched.

  Mark crashes to earth like a meteor, smiling as he fights to get his breath back, grateful to be alive.

  Lying there, in a man-shaped crater in the pavement, he laughs and opens his eyes to see a crowd of fire-fighters staring at him. He realises now that most of his overalls have burned away, leaving him with little else to cover him.

  One of them, an older man wearing a white helmet who is obviously in charge, raises an eyebrow.

  “Well, shit.”

  Episode 8

  Superhero

  Mark's nostrils are still filled with ash and heat. His tattered overalls are lying in a heap on the road, shredded like road-kill. Sitting in the open side of a fire engine – where the hose is kept – he wraps his arms around himself and shivers; not from the cold, as he'd gladly bathe in ice, but from the adrenaline.

  All around him are the red trucks of the fire service, with ambulances approaching out of the darkness with enough lights and sirens to wake the dead.

  “Right,” announces the commander of the firemen. He walks over, unbuttoning his heavy black jacket and throwing it around Mark's naked shoulders. Standing before him, he takes off his white helmet and ruffles his hair – the same shock white as his headgear. His face is far darker, caked in smoke and sweat – he has the look of somebody who has overdone their sun tan, his face like a wrinkled raisin. “It's time we spoke, son.”

  “Thanks for the coat, but I don't really it,” says Mark, shrugging.

  “You aren't sitting around naked on my watch. You're that laddy from the news, aren't you?”

  “The news?”

  “Aye. A few months back – you were jumping about Glasgow punching helicopters and fighting soldiers and what-not. That was you.”

  “What gave it away?”

  “Lifting twenty tonnes of rubble off yourself? Then leaping sixty feet into the air?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “My boys said you ran into that place when it was burning to the ground. Trying to save people?”

  “Actually,” says Mark. “I was trying to save the building. I thought it was empty.”

  “A building isn't worth your life, son.”

  “This one is my life,” says Mark, staring at the mound of ruins. His voice grows quieter, softer, as he goes on, taking an aching breath. “Was, rather. He knew I'd come running.” He laughs, but there's no humour in it. “I should have listened to my mother.”

  “Who's 'he'?”

  “You ever heard of the King?” The fireman nods. “Me and the King don't get on.”

  “Weren't you the one that exposed him? I remember watching it on the news.” The fireman looks around as though afraid of being overheard. “So he is back, eh? The rumours are true?”

  “Oh yeah,” says Mark, wiping his forehead and leaving a grimy streak across it. In the encroaching darkness, everything is tinted orange by the immutable flames raging over the ruins of the Gardens.

  Mark stares through the myriad of engines and the cloud of steam coming from the hoses, straight at the rubble of what was once his dream.

  Another fireman appears out of the darkness and Mark tenses up, but the figure simply produces a plastic bottle of water, handing it to his officer, who thanks him and offers it to Mark. He takes it and gulps it down, wincing as the icy water chills his stomach.

  “Better?” asks the fireman.

  “Actually, what I could really use is a drink.”

  “Another water? I'll have someone -”

  “No, no,” M
ark waves him down. “Look, it's complicated, but I'll get better a lot faster if you get me some alcohol.”

  The fireman scratches his head. “You uh, got any preference?”

  “I normally like a nice single malt, but I'm bloody thirsty; six beers ought to do it.”

  “Any particular type?”

  “Oh, surprise me.”

  “Anything else I can get you?”

  “Yeah, actually. Are there any reporters or journalists or anything milling around?”

  “A dozen or so by the barriers, we aren't answering questions until the fire is contained.”

  “Send them in,” he says. “Preferably with cameras.”

  “You sure?”

  Mark nods. “I don't have a phone or any other way to contact my friends – I want them to know I'm ok.”

  “I can get you a helmet to wear over your face or something, if you'd like?”

  “What for?”

  The fireman laughs. “To preserve your secret identity.”

  “Bit late for that, the King knows who I am. Besides, I'm not a superhero.”

  The fireman nods, putting on his helmet as he walks away. He stops, turning around with one last question on his lips.

  “Here, if the King's back; are you going to stop him again?”

  “I'll try. Why?”

  “I'll sleep better at night for knowing that, is all.”

  Mark smiles. “Thanks.”

  The fireman returns the smile and walks off into the darkness, heading for the lights of the camera crews.

  Jamie sits on the edge of a bed that is covered in cheap floral patterns, in a room stained yellow by cigarette smoke. Stacy sits beside him, with an alarm clock in her hands. She's staring down into the grimy clock-face; as she stares, the mechanical hands stop moving.

  She nudges Jamie. “Hey look: I've got your power now, too.”

  Jamie lets her have a weak laugh, more out of appreciation for her effort than anything else.

  “You ok, son?” asks Donald, who is sitting by the window with his legs crossed.